(New York, N.Y.) After completing the first phase of dredging PCB-contaminated sediment in the upper Hudson River, EPA today released a detailed technical assessment of the work to a panel of independent scientific experts for review. The EPA report and a similar one prepared by the General Electric Company (GE) are being submitted to the panel in accordance with the agreement under which GE performed the first phase of the dredging, to ensure that the Hudson River dredging project is evaluated using the best scientific and technical information.
The EPA report details the effectiveness of the first phase of dredging, as well as the challenges encountered during the first dredging season. It also lays out the Agency’s modifications to the engineering performance standards for dredging resuspension, residuals, and productivity proposed for the second phase of the project, set to begin in 2011.
“The Hudson River is a magnificent resource that has been negatively impacted by PCB pollution for decades,” said Judith Enck, EPA Regional Administrator. “The completion of the first phase of dredging, while not without problems, has gone very well and is moving us closer to achieving the goal of a cleaner Hudson River. The problems in Phase 1 will be addressed during the careful scientific review, which is now underway.”
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Read the EPA’s report here
Find GE’s report here
Submit YOUR comments to the EPA
An independent panel of experts is scheduled to meet in May to discuss recommendations regarding the future of dredging PCBs from the Hudson River. And a good thing, too. The back and forth, tug-of-war is once again in full swing with General Electric against dredging up the PCBs it dumped in the Hudson while the EPA would like the river clean-up to continue.
Cynics would say that GE could have botched the first phase of dredging in order to get out of paying for further clean-up. Then again, perhaps the clean-up itself is making things worse. And so it goes… On. – Hudson
ALBANY — General Electric Co. and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency are pushing for very different approaches to continued dredging of PCBs from the Hudson River.
GE wants to limit dredging to reduce the amount of PCBs that get stirred up, and cap over more of the river bottom where relatively small amounts of PCBs are difficult to reach.
But EPA believes that the amount of PCBs in the river between Fort Edward and Troy is almost triple earlier estimates, and wants to dredge more river bottom more deeply, but less repeatedly, to capture more PCBs while causing less stirring up.
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By Abby Luby
SPECIAL TO THE DAILY NEWS
Millions of Westchester County and New York City residents could face electric bill rate hikes if the Indian Point nuclear plant winds up with a new cash-challenged owner. Not to mention the contamination…
Built to last 35 years, Indian Point is almost 40 years old and Westchester County is concerned that Enexus would not be legally responsible to decontaminate some 1.63 million cubic feet of radioactive soil when the plant is shut, potentially costing taxpayers hundreds of millions of dollars.
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Hear an audio report from Shawn Allee about an ongoing leak at Indian Point
Visit the strangely-named web site of Indian Point Nuclear and read the “Don’t Panic” guide here
One of the primary reasons for the comeback of the bald eagle population, as well as many other species of birds, is due to the work of environmentalist Rachel Carson, author of Silent Spring, the book which sounded the original alarm call on the misuse of pesticides and helped halt the use of DDT in the United States – Hudson
BETHLEHEM, N.Y. — “When we began dealing with bald eagles in the 1970s, we were down to one pair of eagles remaining in the entire state of New York,” said Peter Nye, Endangered Species Unit Leader for the Department of Environmental Conservation. “As of 2009, we had 24 nesting pairs on the Hudson River,” he explained.
To those who know him, Nye is known simply as “Eagle Eye.”
Along the shores of the Hudson, nestled somewhere high atop the cotton wood trees that line the landscape, are the animals he’s been fighting for over 30 years to save.
“If you ever look an eagle in the eye, they just have a very unique, powerful gaze,” said Nye.
His work has taken off, as New York’s bald eagle population soars to heights not seen since conservation efforts first began.
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Learn more about environmentalist Rachel Carson
Read the 1972 EPA press release banning DDT
A Toronto-based company wants to build a $3.8 billion transmission line to bring green power from Labrador to New York City, which, it says, likely would exert a favorable effect on power costs even in the mid-Hudson. The line would be buried under the Hudson River.
It would enter the U.S. following waterways including Lake Champlain, the Hudson and Long Island Sound, also taking power to southwestern Connecticut, which like New York City is often short of power at peak periods.
Transmission Developers Inc. proposes to build the Champlain-Hudson Power Express, a 2,000-megawatt set of four cables designed to run 355 miles mostly under waterways to “minimize the impact to local communities and the environment,” the developers say.
In the Glens Falls area, where General Electric’s PCB pollution in the riverbed is being dredged, the line would shift to land and run along railroad rights of way, they say. Environmental groups have been cautious, favoring renewable energy but outlining questions about impacts that will need responses.
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Editorial by the Albany Times Union
Not far from the Hudson River, where the most ambitious endeavor yet is under way to cleanse a waterway of PCBs, an equally critical dredging project is in the works. An independent panel of experts is sifting through assessments by the Environmental Protection Agency and General Electric Co. to determine how just effective the cleanup has been and how best to proceed.
Let’s hope they get it right.
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By BRIAN NEARING, Staff writer of Albany Times Union
First published in print: Tuesday, February 16, 2010
ALBANY — A panel of independent experts this week will begin sorting out two massive technical reports on the first year of PCB dredging from the Hudson River to offer a possible road map for the project’s future.
Both the General Electric Co. and U.S. Environmental Protection Agency have filed assessments from last year’s dredging, and in some important ways they came up with different conclusions. Depending on what lessons are learned, EPA will decide later this year on possible changes to the nation’s largest Superfund cleanup project before work resumes as planned in spring 2011.
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Hudson Valley environmental advocates say preliminary results from the first phase of the Hudson River dredging project prove what they have insisted all along: The massive cleanup is necessary.
“The fact that they discovered much higher volumes of PCBs (polychlorinated biphenyls) is justification for the cleanup. It is absolutely critical,” said Ned Sullivan, president of Scenic Hudson, the regional, nonprofit environmental group.
“It shows the project is necessary and warranted,” said Kristen Skopeck, spokeswoman for the Environmental Protection Agency. “This needs to be removed from the river.”
But General Electric, which is conducting the mammoth cleanup with EPA oversight, reported the dredging released more PCBs into the water than the EPA expected.
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BUCHANAN — The Indian Point nuclear plant is making a pitch to use underwater screens to filter Hudson River water rather than build the $1.5 billion concrete cooling towers the state wants.
Entergy Nuclear Northeast, the plant owner, said in a report to the state Department of Environmental Conservation this week that the $100 million Wedgewire screens would be easier to put in place, would be up and running sooner and are environmentally sound (Well, they would say that, wouldn’t they? – Hudson).
At issue is aquatic life in the river, where Indian Point currently draws and discharges water used at its two reactors. The notion that the screens would be easier on Hudson River wildlife “is just not accurate,” said Phillip Musegaas, Hudson River program director for the environmental group Riverkeeper.
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